


Snowbounding

by sage_theory (papersage)



Series: The Snow Series [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-04
Updated: 2011-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-16 02:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cam and Daniel take a snow day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowbounding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [_oceana](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=_oceana).



_"Well, I been afraid of changing  
'cause I built my life around you  
But time makes you older  
Children get older  
And I'm getting older, too..."_  
\- Fleetwood Mac  
 _"Landslide"_

 

The winter hits Colorado like a hammer this time of year. Daniel wakes up to at least a foot of snow outside his window and sighs, coffee cup in hand as he looks out over the expanse of whiteness. Outside his window the sky is starkly white-grey is stark. The trees are skeletons that endure the piles of snow on their outstretched arms.

The last time there was a snow like this was the last winter he was with Jack. It's taken Daniel a very, very long time to be able to think about things like that without flinching. He can keep drinking coffee and keep the expression off his face now. If someone was standing beside him, they'd think he was just concentrating on the weather. He learned to do that when he got tired of people around him asking what was wrong. He got tired of lying politely and saying he was tired or just thoughtful - when really something was quite wrong.

Maybe it's Jack fault, maybe it's his, maybe it's nobody's.

Daniel tries to be kind about it. Jack is living a decade past what he ever expected to, he intended to be dead a very long time ago.

The phone rings about the time that his coffee runs out. Daniel shuts the curtains and tries not to think about how he's going to dig his car out of the snow and get it up the hill or up the mountain.

Picking up the phone he's greeted by a very cheerful, slightly loud, "Look out the window yet, Jackson?" from Cam.

Daniel smiles. "I did."

"I know this is gonna sound rude, but the power at my place is out and there's no tellin' how long it's gonna take somebody to get out here. Think I could crash with you? I'd ask Carter, but you know, that'd be weird."

Part of Daniel is quick to react in a negative manner. He was fully prepared to tell Stargate Command that there's no physical way for him to get to work and spend a day sipping coffee, alone with his memories of Jack.

Part of Daniel knows he spends too many days that way.

"Sure. Why not?"

"Excellent," Cam says. "I'll be there...when I get there. Damn it's coming down. Last time I saw this much snow..."

Cam doesn't finish that sentence, and even over the line, Daniel can taste the bitterness in it.

"Drive carefully," Daniel says, and isn't sure why he said that.

He refills on coffee and watches out the window once more. School children who have been given the day off are making the best of it. They look like multicolored marshmallows running around in puffy coats and throwing snowballs.

Daniel has Jack to thank for that image. The man always loved watching kids at play. Once he dragged Daniel out and they had a snowball fight with the kids who lived down the street. Daniel never understood how Jack could stand it, could standing watching the one thing he wanted most and would never have again. Then again, he was as much of a child as any of them out there. And they say children do that, they heal faster than adults. He wonders if Jack has already healed completely from him, because Daniel can poke at the open sores any time he wants, they're all still there. He wonders if Jack is somewhere in Washington, torturing some other geek as though Daniel never existed.

Cameron's car comes pulling up, slowly, in what passes for his driveway. The wind's blown the snow so that there's a driveable space next half way in. Daniel smiles despite himself, watching the SUV fight for each inch until it's out of the street. An he, like Jack, does not knock. He comes right in.

Standing on the welcome mat, shaking off snow, Cameron smiles at him happily and red faced. "I knew y'all had some crazy weather when I came out here, but woooo!"

Cameron ruffles his own wet hair, making Daniel thinks of him as a dog shaking itself off on the doorstep.

Daniel just smirks. "Coffee?"

"Oh yeah."

Daniel goes off to the kitchen to see if there's a clean mug to offer Cameron, and suspects that he wouldn't mind one that was pre-used and only slightly rinsed out.

Jack never did.

Daniel was fully prepared to hate Cameron Mitchell, or at least be indifferent to him. He had all the things that had made Daniel love and hate and need Jack so much. He had that boyish charm, that smile, that way of admitting stupidity without any kind of shame. For a while, Daniel bit his tongue and hoped that Cameron would be just a passing phase.

Except Caml never went away. He stayed and treated them all to his homespun charm and his way of referring to Daniel as 'Jackson', something Daniel hated at first.

Cam rarely, if ever, referred to him as Dr. Jackson. After a while, it became apparent that Cam called him 'Jackson' because as far as he was concerned Daniel was the same as Sam or Teal'c. For a while, he wondered if Cam was aware of the fact that Daniel was not, in fact, military.

He figured Cam must have known, he'd read the files. Still, he handed Daniel a gun and expected him to be just as talented as Sam or Teal'c.

Something Jack never once did in the eight years they worked together. He never missed the wariness in Jack's eyes when he was holding a gun, nor the fact that given a choice, Jack was quick to pick Teal'c and Sam for the more dangerous parts of their mission.

Cam comes into the kitchen and says, "I put my coat on the chair in there, hope that's all right."

"It's fine," Daniel assures him, with a smile.

"So," Cam says, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Daniel looks away. "So."

"You look like a man who could use something stiffer than coffee."

Daniel cocks his eyebrow. "It's not even nine in the morning."

Cam smirks. "It's five o' clock somewhere, and I wasn't talking about a drink. I was talking about the absolute best thing you can have during a snowstorm."

"Which is?"

"Snow creme, Jackson. Snow creme," Cam replies.

"Snow creme?"

Cam laughs a throaty, smutty laugh and leans back, crossing his legs in a leisurely way. "You mean you been out here since ninety-seven and you've never heard of snow creme? Here I thought you were a genius."

"I'm taking the day off," he replies dryly.

This seems to amuse Cam even more. "Come on. Grab your coat. I'll learn you something real quick," he says, in a mockery of his own semi-Southern lilt. The linguist in Daniel could place him within about fifty miles of his hometown just on that alone.

Despite the fact that Daniel has an aversion to snow this high, he gets his coat, his boots, his gloves and trudges out side into the yard.

"Trick is to get the good snow," he says.

"If it's yellow does that make it bad?" Daniel asks, deadpan.

Cam looks up for a moment, like he thinks Daniel might be serious and then breaks into a laugh and points at him, nodding, awarding him the point for having got one over on him. Daniel just nods and watches as Cam lets himself fall flat onto the snow with a triumphant crow.

His hat falls off and Daniel looks down at Cam with wet spiked hair and red cheeks. It strikes him that Cam is a little more beautiful than he is strictly comfortable with and that when he smiles, it's a bit of a fight not to smile back.

He wanted to hate this man, wanted him to stay on the peripheral, but Cameron Mitchell is nothing if not persistent.

"You gotta love snow days, huh, Jackson?" Cam says, getting up and shaking the snow off with an animalistic 'brr'. He scoops up a giant handful of snow and packs it down a little in his hands.

"So is that all we need?" Daniel asks.

"This ain't for the snow creme," he replies, and then hurls it straight at Daniel's chest.

Something sparks to life in Daniel. Something young and free and unburdened. Something stark and pure as snow. Something that smiles and wants to leap, twist, run, and fall laughing only to get up and do it again. Suddenly snow is flying back and forth between them and they laugh and dodge and throw like stupid, beautiful boys.

Lion-like, Cam pounces when he's close enough and brings Daniel down in the middle of the full body print he left a few moments before.

Looking down at him, Cam says, "I got a couple of confessions to make."

For a moment Daniel worries. Firstly, because Cam has him pretty solidly pinned and secondly because Cam isn't smiling anymore.

"You're not a clone, are you?"

"No, god, nothing like that."

"Just checking. It wouldn't be the first time," Daniel says.

Cam laughs for a moment, but the smile melts like snow in his hand.

"The power at my house isn't really out," Cam says.

Daniel smiles. "Really. I'm shocked."

"I like you, Jackson."

"Call me Daniel."

"All right then. I like you, Daniel. I like you when you figure stuff out that goes right over my head, and I like you when you smile."

"And you think I'd be attracted to you in return?" asks Daniel, narrowing his eyes. The boldness and the certainty in the words, in the way he has no fear of straddling Daniel in the snow and plucking his glasses off in one smooth motion is intriguing and bewilderingly seductive.

"I already know you are."

Daniel flips them both and he's on top of Cam. "You think that do you?"

The tone is dire, but it means nothing. Daniel can't help feeling crisp and clearheaded and sharp in the cold, cold air. He can't help feeling like it might just be all right if, for a while, they were just stupid boys in the snow.

Cam laughs while they kiss, with his eyes squeezed closed and Daniel's glasses in his hand.


End file.
